“I’ve never been scared of doing the non-traditional.”
While a career as a corporate lawyer might appear traditional, the trajectory of Jorge Alers’ career, the different places he has worked, and the organizations he has worked on behalf of have been filled with adventure and new creations.
Alers, who graduated in 1982 with a degree in political science and a minor in French, loved theory and philosophy and considered a career in academia like his father, a CSU professor of rural sociology (Manuel Alers-Montalvo).
Alers spent much of his childhood in Fort Collins but was born in Costa Rica, and his family traveled regularly to Costa Rica and beyond (like Venezuela) for his father’s research. This early exposure to travel and other people and cultures was critical to Alers’ development.
While a student at CSU, Alers studied abroad in Brittany, France. “It was a phenomenal experience to travel independently and see the world. There are moments that are an inflection point in life – this was one for me – I realized this is what I want to do,” says Alers, and so began his interest in a career that would allow him to work internationally.
“It was a phenomenal experience to travel independently and see the world. There are moments that are an inflection point in life – this was one for me – I realized this is what I want to do.” — Jorge Alers (’82)
The economy and job prospects of the early 1980s persuaded Alers to pursue law school instead of academia and he headed to Harvard Law School, where he found law both intellectually stimulating and creative. The desire to go abroad remained, so he took a leave of absence between his second and third years of law school to do an international internship. He ended up at a law firm in Buenos Aires, and the internship changed the course of his focus; rather than heading to France or Europe, his first passions, he turned his attention to Latin America.
For more than 30 years, Alers worked in international corporate law and finance, as a partner in several large international law firms, as the General Counsel of two multilateral financial institutions (the Inter-American Investment Corporation and the Inter-American Development Bank), and most recently as the Latin American and Caribbean CEO of Dentons, the world’s largest law firm.
During that time, a desire to do more in his birth country of Costa Rica, as well as a desire to make sure his four children were connected to their heritage, inspired Alers and his wife to move to Costa Rica in 2008 for an entrepreneurial opportunity. While that entrepreneurial venture suffered, the experience did not. “I wanted to show my kids that they have a great deal of freedom in fashioning their own future,” says Alers. “They shouldn’t allow a fear of failure to limit their pursuit of their own passions.”
“I’m proud of my and my wife’s decision to do something unconventional,” he says.
Alers is now retired and living between Breckenridge, Colo. and Guanacaste, Costa Rica, continuing to pursue the non-traditional. He was an assembly member of The Costa Rican USA Foundation for Cooperation (CRUSA), a private, independent, non-profit foundation that supports projects in Costa Rica that align with its strategic focus on climate change and sustainable development, promoting leadership in philanthropy and human capital development. And now he is a board member of Cultura, Educacion y Psicologia de la Infancia y la Adolescencia (CEPIA), an award-winning Costa Rican non-profit association that provides educational, psychological, and general health services to vulnerable populations in the Province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
“In Costa Rica there is a good social safety net – free education and health care – but it is under severe strain,” says Alers. “Almost 25-30% of the population is arrivals from other countries; in the last 12 months alone, 250,000 people are estimated to have arrived in a country of five million. These people not covered in the social safety net in the same way.”
And so Alers continues his international work, investing his time and knowledge into a project that will benefit Costa Rica for years to come: its children and their future.
Jorge Alers will receive the College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Honor Alumnus Award on Thurs. Oct. 12 in the Lory Student Center.
